A week after his presidential inauguration, Joe Biden cited the climate and biodiversity crises as reasons to set a sweeping new goal – to conserve at least 30% of America’s vast lands and waters by the end of the decade. Three years on, new protections have spurred meaningful progress towards meeting the target by 2030. Those efforts stretch from glacial lakes in Minnesota to tribal lands in arid New Mexico to huge expanses of the frigid Arctic and to archaeological sites on the doorstep of El Paso, Texas .
However, the potential return of Donald Trump to the White House now looms ominously over hopes to preserve further land and seascapes. What has Biden achieved so far? Two graphics stacked on top of each other. On top are two khaki and blue colored bars labeled for Land and Water, approaching a a striped vertical line labeled “30% goal”.
Below is a gray US map with the same colored shapes overlaid to show the area of land preserved and its gap from the striped goal. As Biden took office, about 12% of US land had been protected by previous administrations. About 41m acres, an area slightly larger than Florida, has been placed under some form of new protection across public and private lands during Biden’s term, according to the White House, meaning that about 13% of the US’s landmass is now deemed protected, up by about 1%.
A far smaller expanse of US waters have been newly conserved under Biden but the aquatic side of the goal is closer with 26% currently prot.
